This information was available over the past 8 years since China has been member of the WTO.
Why did it take until now for NYT to bother reporting the "full story"?
I have been in Shanghai those 8 years. I have lived this story. The only ones America has to blame are themselves. China has its own set of problems. They didn't setup a global conspiracy to achieve their current position. China simply took advantage of horrifically bad U.S. management and took care of their own country. U.S. business and government leadership were always the front runners in "enabling" this relationship. If you want to start a mob frenzy, do it on Wall Street.
You answered your own question - everone who's anyone was deriving short-term(~5-10 years) benefts from this.
I disagree with you on "China ... took care of their own country". They did not come out of this any better than Americans and their actions were just as shortsighted. While Americans will lose ability to pay for SUVs, plasma TVs, and middle-east wars, Chinese will lose their jobs. It's a lot better to still have a job and only be able to buy half as much as you used to, then not to have a job at all.
I only partially agree with this. The Chinese can spend their entire 7++ trillion in cash reserves over the next 5 years to support domestic economic maturity. The U.S. must continue to borrow and sell off assets in order to do so.
How would they go about spending 7 trillion? Serious question.
If money is given to citizens they will likely hoard it rather than spend. Instead Chinese government used to give the money to American citizens because those never really save anything and it comes all back to stimulate the Chinese economy. Now this meachanism is broken. The only option left is government spending - "the new deal for China". Indeed that's what they are planning to do, but I don't think the new deal can replace the employment opportunities lost.
